


Jeeves and the Affair of Honor

by Penknife



Category: Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Dueling, M/M, The Psychology of the Individual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:54:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28671105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penknife/pseuds/Penknife
Summary: This modern revival of the old blood sport was quite a nuisance.
Relationships: Reginald Jeeves/Bertram "Bertie" Wooster
Comments: 19
Kudos: 55
Collections: Exchanges After Dark Birthday Bash 2021





	Jeeves and the Affair of Honor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Prinzenhasserin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prinzenhasserin/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Дживс и дело чести](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29863572) by [WTF Anything Retro 2021 (Anything_Retro)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anything_Retro/pseuds/WTF%20Anything%20Retro%202021)



"Explain to me again the rules of the duel, Jeeves," I said.

"They are quite simple, sir. Having taken ten paces—"

"In opposite directions, what?" I felt that I was beginning to grasp the thing.

"Precisely, sir. You will then each raise your weapon and fire. I believe that aiming for the opponent's heart is the usual method."

"And that, as they say, is that?"

"Indeed, sir."

"It seems a bit lacking in the old daring-do, Jeeves. One imagines swords flashing all over the place."

"I do not advise, sir, attempting to learn to fence at this late date. It is a skill developed through long practice."

Well, that as good as explained why I'd never developed it. The only skills I'd developed through long practice were the ones ground into me in my school days, and in those days no one had ever dreamed of settling their differences with a spot of dueling. This modern revival of the old blood sport was quite a nuisance.

Jeeves fiddled with the dueling pistols, which lay there in their case with a rum sort of shine to them. "But, I say, Jeeves. Isn't it all a bit dangerous?"

"Quite often deadly, sir."

"Don't you think I had better apologize after all?"

"As an honorable gentleman, sir, you could hardly retract remarks made in the defense of a lady."

"I suppose not."

The whole business had started when Tuppy had said, in a fit of what I feel the poets might describe as pique, that my cousin Angela's new hat made her look as if her head was being swallowed by an octopus. It did to my mind strike the cephalopodal note, but a Wooster is a gentleman, so I sprang to her defense. As I recall, I said something on the order of, "I say, now, that's going a bit far, don't you think, what?"

And then Tuppy sprang up like some kind of tentacled creature rising from the deep, and declared himself insulted, and further insinuated that the only reason for my leaping to Angela's defense was that I meant to woo her away from him. Well, nothing could have been further from my mind, but then Angela spoke up in what might also have been pique and said, "He meant what he said about my hat. Didn't you, Bertie?"

Well, as I believe I have mentioned already, a Wooster is a gentleman. "I did," I said, and that was that.

"I am prepared to act as your second in this matter, sir," Jeeves said.

"Good of you, Jeeves."

"I hesitate to point out the matter now, sir, when it may soon become irrelevant, but I did advise you that Miss Angela Travers might be a dangerous choice of companions while young men's passions are so inflamed by the fad of dueling."

"So you did, Jeeves. I didn't listen to you, did I?"

"I am afraid not, sir."

"Why don't I ever listen to you before it's too late, Jeeves?"

"One might come to believe, sir, that you have a subconscious desire to place yourself in predicaments from which you require rescue. It is a not uncommon phenomenon in young ladies who are attempting to attract the attention of a suitor by presenting themselves as damsels in distress."

"But dash it all, Jeeves, I'm not a young lady."

"No, sir."

"Nor would I like to attract the attention of young ladies. It always turns out to be more trouble than it's worth, wouldn't you say?"

"Indeed, sir."

"Although I could hardly be in more trouble than I'm in right now, I should think."

"I have faith in your capabilities, sir," Jeeves said, and I wasn't entirely sure how to take it.

"Should I write a letter, do you think? Last words and all that, if Tuppy perforates me and I shuffle off this mortal coil?"

"Your aunt Travers might find it a comfort, sir."

"I can't explain this to my aunt. To any aunts. I shall trust to you to do that, Jeeves." I felt a certain nobility descending on me, as if the Woosters of generations past looked over my shoulder and did not find me wanting.

"And is there anything you wish to say, sir, to any person for whom you might harbor tender feelings?"

"I mean … that is to say …" I hardly knew what to say. There was certainly no young lady for whom I might leave words of love, for her to read while weeping softly into a lace-edged handkerchief at break of day. "There's no one who matters to me more than you, Jeeves."

"Indeed, sir?"

"Will you be sorry that I'm gone, Jeeves?"

"Very sorry, sir."

"Unless of course I manage to shoot old Tuppy. But that hardly seems the done sort of thing. Angela would miss him, I should think. And besides, we were at school together."

"Perhaps he will remember that as well, sir."

"I shouldn't think so. Although perhaps he'll be sorry later." It seemed all very sad. "Don't you think, sometimes, that life is very sad, Jeeves?"

"I would find it so, sir, should you in fact be in mortal peril."

"I should think I'm in the mortalest sort of peril now." I tossed my head and tried to meet the inevitable in the style of the chap who said, when facing death, that it was a bally good thing he was doing, and far more of a bally good thing than any bally good thing he'd done before.

"No, sir."

"What do you mean, no, sir?"

"You will find, sir, that I have taken the precaution of removing the ammunition from both pistols."

I stared at the pistols in their case. "But won't Tuppy realize something's wrong?"

"I expect, sir, that young Mr. Glossop will find himself so relieved at avoiding either his death or your own through some accident to the weapons in question that he will not inquire in more depth into the matter until some time has passed. When he does so, I am prepared to inform him that Miss Angela desired me to render the pistols harmless out of her tender concern for his well-being."

"That's dashed clever, Jeeves!"

"Thank you, sir."

"But you might have told me at once."

"It is a matter of the psychology of the individual, sir. It seemed to me that an encounter with what you believed to be mortal peril might bring you to a realization of tender feelings which you have harbored without being aware of them. Again, in the case of the damsel in distress--"

"Enough with the damsels, Jeeves."

"Yes, sir."

"But you didn't let me go on believing I was in mortal peril."

"I confess to suffering, sir, from a certain susceptibility to the expression of yours that so resembles that of a sorrowful spaniel."

"Dash it all, Jeeves, I don't resemble a sorrowful spaniel."

"I believe the experiment to be a failure in any event. Unless some tender sentiments have sprung to mind?"

"It's possible that they have," I said, regarding Jeeves in a rather different light. "But what am I to do about them, supposing that I have them?"

"If you will permit me to suggest a course of action, sir, I will be pleased to do so once your present affair of honor is settled. It occurs to me, sir, that your habitual means of expressing affection are somewhat overcomplicated and prone to devolving into comical misadventure, while a more direct approach to the matter might yield more lasting satisfaction."

"As you say, Jeeves. I suppose you would know all about it?"

"I endeavor to give satisfaction in all regards, sir."

"Then lead on to the duel," I said, and looked forward to brandishing my pistol in the most gallant possible way.


End file.
